Lifeline Of The Dead
by Lonelysubmarine
Summary: The funeral wasn’t lavish: Edward knew that Bella never would have wanted that. Jasper/Edward.


**Title:** Lifeline Of The Dead  
**Pairing:** Edward/Jasper  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Prompt:** Funeral  
**Notes:** It's slash, there's character death, an emo Edward. This started as just something, I wasn't even sure if I was going to use it for Twilighttables( Livejournal) but I decided to use it for the prompt Funeral. Fathomlesssky( Livejournal) bated it, because she's freaking amazing; any other mistakes are my own.

**_Lifeline Of The Dead_**

I watched as Edward walked a slow walk of depression through the graveyard; his feet sank into the wet ground while the rain washed away his tears. He sank down to the ground at Bella's gravestone, his shoulders heaving to the rhythm of his shaking body.

Alice stood next to me and I couldn't sense anything coming off of her at all. She was so numb that it felt like she was dead. She'd already 'cried' her share at the funeral and had nothing left in her to feel; she'd felt every emotion as they raged inside her until_ I_ too had felt nauseated. I turned to look at her.

The funeral wasn't lavish: Edward knew that Bella never would have wanted that. There were only a few people there and I stood off to the side with him as we watched the preacher read a verse. We weren't going to speak aloud but Edward would, every once in a while, nod at things I'd thought.

I spoke the three most important words out loud as they lowered the casket into the earth. I offered my hand to him and he took it as we watched them, never letting go and not caring that Mike was staring at us as though we had grown three heads each. Edward tightened his grip, and I looked to see what could have affected him, besides the obvious. Our family was saying goodbye to her. Alice, Esme, Emmett and Rosalie each bent down, gracefully, to drop red roses onto the coffin. Carlisle had taken a handful of dirt and dropped it into Bella's resting place. All of her friends and various members of her family said a few words over her and placed flowers all around her coffin in the grass.

"Go," I turned to look at Alice. She was staring at Edward, whose hand traced out the letters of 'Isabella Swan' on the marker. Alice turned on her feet and looked at me, pressing a kiss upon my cheek. I didn't understand even when she began to walk away from me.

"He needs you more than I do. I've felt all I can, he hasn't. _Help_ him."

She walked out of the graveyard. I finally understood, as she got into her yellow Porsche, which Edward had purchased for her in what seemed like, ages ago.

I walked to Edward and his emotions hit me like a tidal wave. My chest and head ached dully. Edward turned and, with his back against her gravestone, looked up at me. _Fallen angel,_ was all I could think. I felt a small spark of laughter at that, although he didn't show it at all, but I'd felt it and it was real. But in just a second it was gone, a spark, a flash, gone in the heart beat that neither of us had.

"Don't say you're sorry," he said it in a voice that was muted to a whisper, to my enhanced hearing, reminding me of when he would sing songs so lowly that even we could barely hear him. I couldn't think of a thing to say to him as he sat there, his face streaked with the rain that looked like tears and his emotions eating me alive. Then it hit me.

"Did you know that Mark Twain once said that 'Pity is for the living, Envy is for the dead'? Where do we fall? I could never answer that question," His eyes widened and I felt confusion run into the lead of all his other feelings. He stood carefully and looked down at the gravestone one last time before walking away from it and myself. _Follow?_ He nodded and I started to walk after him, catching up to him in a few moments. He didn't look at me when we walked out of the graveyard and got into his silver Volvo, and we drove away when he turned the ignition and put the car in drive.

The road that led back home was beautiful, in that strange way that makes you realize that death is close, but not touching the earth at all; so close that it's almost enough to make you hurl because of the sickly, sweet sent in the air.

He said something that I didn't hear, but I didn't ask him to repeat it because I realized what he had said as I looked down and saw his hand in the space between our seats. I took it and returned to looking outside the window, looking for home.

_Home is empty. Where are we going?_ He looked over at me and I caught his eyes.

"Seattle. Is that okay with you?" I just nodded, although I wasn't sure how I would be able to handle it but at this point I really didn't care and I tighten my hand within his.

I sat in the car as we went into a hotel in the University District that I'd never been in but had seen every time I'd passed Seattle to go to the _Comic Dungeon_ in Wallingford.

He came out, got into the car, and drove around absently to park. We walked into the hotel together—he'd taken my hand again when we'd gotten out of the car. I was glad we didn't have any bags as we ambled into the hotel elevator. On floor six we exited and walked down the hall to room 609. He opened the door and I pulled him in the room, closing and locking it as he wondered around the room.

"Edward, do you want to talk about it?" It was, without a doubt, the stupidest thing I have ever said. I couldn't believe that I'd really said it, at last.

"Not really. Dead is dead," He shrugged, his emotions still raged though, even though he had a cool, calm façade to make others think he no longer cared, he was feeling everything all at once and it wasn't going to stop anytime soon. This _Pet Sematary_ stuff was bullshit. Edward never had, and probably never would, feel like this. _Dead was dead_, my ass.

"Edward."

He snapped his head up and looked at me. He'd been nose deep in _Wuthering Heights_, which had so much emotional baggage connected to it that it could have been a claim—Edward's personal baggage claim.

"Yeah?" He put the book down on his covers as I slid off my own bed for the room he made for me on his bed. I leaned across, scared to death, and kissed him gently. He sighed against my lips and kissed back before stopping to move the book to the table that was between our beds.

"You should destroy that book." He glanced at the book as it slid gently out of his hand to crash into fake wood of the table and then turned his head ever so slightly so he could look at me. It was a swift motion. He seized the book once again and gripped it from what seemed like the middle of the book and tore the spine from the inside out. It ripped and I smiled at him, and the spark flashed for a minute as he tore it up.

"That's a big first step," I commented, but he just shook his head.

"Pity for the living, Envy for the dead and Hatred for our kind. _You_ were my first step." He grabbed my upper arm after throwing the remaining parts of the book onto the ugly brown carpet. I reached over and let my hand rest on his cheek and then ran my hand across the nape of his neck, pulling him to me again. Some kind of indescribable happiness filled my heart and I wasn't sure whose it was. Certainly, I was happy that he'd finally started to move forward. Moving backwards never suited Edward Cullen.

He'd always run forward, and fast.


End file.
